1898. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



213 



or three that thought the only time for the curculio was to 

 spray right in the biossona, but they have gotten over that. 

 But I think that it wouid be a wise thing for each State to 

 adopt a law so as to prevent that, because I have knowu of in- 

 instances where serious damage occurred by spraying at the 

 wrong time, altho the horticultural societies and newspapers 

 have taken up the subject so thoroughly that almost ail that 

 do spray now will spray at the proper time. There are very 

 few, I suppose, that are still of the opinion they must spray 

 right in the blossom. 



Mr. Whitcomb — All the books say that the coddling-moth 

 lays its eggs in the calyx of the apple. Some experiments 

 were made at the experiment station of Nebraska, and Prof. 

 Card says that is not the case. They made some discoveries 

 that entirely contradict that. 



Mr. Dunne — I would like to ask if the English sparrow is 

 injurious to the honey-bee? 



Pres. Miller — I have never heard of such a thing. 



Mr. Baxter^It would be a very great wonder if it wasn't 

 because it is injurious to almost everything else. 



POULTRY OR OTHER BUSINES.S WITH BEES. 



M. S. Miller — T would ask whether in a small place 

 poultry would Interfere with bees. They will not, so far as I 

 know, except in the case of ducks. Will any other kind of 

 poultry eat enough bees to do any damage ? 

 Mr. Whitcomb — No, sir. 



Mr. Baxter — Not even ducks. I have ducks running all 

 through my apiary. 



Mr. Whitcomb— They will drink out of the same bowl, 

 and not interfere with them. I have known chickens to eat 

 bees, and to follow it up, but it is an acquired habit. 



M. S. Miller— We had a few ducks at home, and they 

 appeared to think that bees were the finest pudding ever 

 made. 



Mr. Karch— We have a great lot of chickens, ducks, 

 geese and all, and I never noticed that any of the poultry in- 

 terfered with the bees. 



Mr. Baxter— I have chickens that eat bees — just follow 

 up one hive after another, and eat them. I have watcht those 

 chickens, and they invariably take the drones. 



Pres. Miller— A question closely connected with that is 

 the question as to what other business can most conveniently 

 and properly be workt along with bee-keeping, and some 

 have answered that the poultry business was one of the best 

 for combining with bee-keeping. 



Mr. Whitco-nb- 1 should say horticulture. 

 Mr. Stone — I would say the same. 

 Pres. Miller— What kind of horticulture? 

 Mr. Whitcomb — Fruit and gardening. 



Pres. Miller— How many of you know anything about the 

 combination? Here are a number. Now tell us the advan- 

 tages and disadvantages. 



Mr. Karch — I think it would depend largely upon the 

 location, whether horticulture would pay— the nature of the 

 soil. In some places it is perhaps too cold. 



Mr. Whitcomb- The honey-bee is one of the greatest 

 friends of the horticulturist. I have always advocated that 

 friends stand close together. 



Mr. Stone— Mr. Becker, one of the members of our State 

 Association, keeps a number of colonies, and in the neighbor- 

 hood is a man who keeps three or four acres of raspberries, 

 besides fruit, grapes, apples, peaches, and nearly everything 

 of the kind. Mr. Becker has often had a flow of honey, a 

 good flow from those raspberries of his neighbor's when the 

 rest of us didn't have anything that our bees could go upon. 

 He would have a number of hundred pounds of honey from 

 those raspberries alone. My bees have workt very strong 

 through the apple-bloom season. I have a great many apple- 

 trees. Other fruits I haven't raised very extensively. But I 

 know that my bees get a great benefit from those apple-trees, 

 and his bees get a great benefit from those raspberries. 



Mr. Baxter— We raised this year and shipt 25 carloads of 

 strawberries, 6 carloads of blackberries, and 3-1: carloads of 

 grapes. It is true that two of my brothers are in partnership 

 with me in the fruit business, but they are not In the bee- 

 business— that belongs to me exclusively. I have 250 colonies 

 of bees, and altho during the monih of June I devoted as 

 much time to the gathering and shipping of strawberries as 

 my brothers, it did not interfere to prevent my producing some 

 30 barrels of white clover honey in connection with the fruit. 

 And I think it would pay well. Besides that, those big fields 

 of strawberries were a great item in building up my colonies 

 In the spring. I have seen it said that bees do not gather any- 

 thing from strawberries. I know better than that, for I have 

 tried it very extensively. We have something over 80 acres 

 of strawberries, and we have been in that business now up- 



wards of 10 years. The grape business — I can't remember 

 when we didn't work in that, because it was my father's, and 

 we grew up into it. The same with apples. We raised apples, 

 grapes, strawberries, blackberries, and some currants, and we 

 used to raise a great many raspberries, but it is difficult to 

 ship them, and of course we have no home market, and have to 

 ship them away to Minneapolis, St. Paul, Grand Forks and 

 Denver, and all through the Northwest, and of course we 

 have to raise such things as we can ship. 



Dr. Besse— I don't know what a younger man than I 

 would do, but for a year like this a man wouldn't want to do 

 anything more than attend to his bees ; with 125 or 150 col- 

 onies he doesn't want anythingelsetodo. It takes a great deal 

 of time to get supers ready, taking off honey and sell it ; 

 he finds it is about all he wants to do the year around — at 

 least I do. On a small scale a man mightkeep a few bees and 

 follow gardening or fruit-raising, or something of that kind. 

 I think the orchard business, especially for the fruits, would 

 go well together. 



Pres. Miller — That one item should be considered. While 

 all that is said may be true, It is also true that the busiest 

 time in the small-fruit business comes at the busiest time in 

 bee-keeping. I had a number of acres in raspberries and 

 strawberries, and I found that at the very time when I was 

 busiest with the berries I was busiest with the bees. So to- 

 day, while I believe with Mr. Whitcomb that fruit-raisers and 

 bee-keepers should be close friends and neighbors, I want 

 them on the opposite side of the fence, so far as it works in 

 my locality. At least I don't want to be the fruit-raiser if 1 

 am the bee-keeper, just on account of its coming that way. 

 The probability is Mr. Baxter is of such executive ability he 

 can oversee the two trades, but if he does much at directly 

 overseeing, and doesn't delegate that overseeing to any one 

 else at the busy time of picking berries, it will take about all 

 his time, but he probably has some one to help in both de- 

 partments. 



Mr. Baxter — I don't oversee, Mr. President. I do the 

 work myself. I work for extracted honey. If I workt for 

 comb honey it would make a big difference. My supers go on 

 the hive before the strawberries are ripe. I put enough on so 

 that I don't have to put on more during the season. 



Pres. Miller — So the bees don't keep you busy at the time 

 of the berries ? 



Mr. Baxter — No, sir. 



Mr. Whitcomb— The year 1892 was very wet with us, 

 very wet and cold. I had 300 bearing cherry-trees adjacent 

 to my apiaries, and during the time that the cherries were in 

 full bloom there were two days in which the colonies workt 

 profusely on the cherry blossoms. As a result of that we 

 harvested upwards of 200 bushels of cherries, while my neigh- 

 bors who had no bees got no cherries, and had to buy their 

 cherries of me. Their trees were in just as good condition. 



Pres. Miller— How far apart ? 



Mr. Whitcomb — A mile or two off. Their trees blossomed 

 as profusely as mine, and I could not attribute it to anything 

 else than the bees pollenizing the cherry blossoms. 



ADULTERATION OF HONEY AND OTHER FOODS. 



Miss Kate Will, a lecturer on "Science of Health and 

 Pure-Food," addrest the meeting as follows : 



"I read with great pleasure and interest yesterday in the 

 newspapers about your resolution to Congress against the 

 adulteration of honey. I lecture on health foods, and honey 

 is something I am very much interested in, for I consider it a 

 health food, and I have contended for quite awhile that it is 

 useless to get up State laws on adulteration of foods, that we 

 must go before Congress. We are having a series of meetings 

 here on the subject of health, and we talk on different lines, 

 and I tjlk on health food. We had a meeting of that kind 

 yesterday. I brought it up. I told them there that we would 

 have to go before Congress for a national law against the 

 adulteration of foods. Of course you know better than I do 

 how honey is adulterated, and with such a valuable health 

 food as it is, I do wish something could be done about it to 

 keep it pure and healthy. I am so glad you have taken it up, 

 and I wish you success. Anything I could do through the 

 woman's organizations I would be glad Indeed to do." 



Mr. Whitcomb — I don't think there is one-half of the 

 adulteration of honey that the honey is given credit for. I 

 don't believe there is a gentleman in this room that adulterl 

 ates honey. 1 don't ^7101:1 anything about it. I couldn't tcl 

 anythiniJ about it. I would like to know how many present 

 adulterate honey. 



Pres. Miller — All those present who adulterate honey 

 please hold up their hands. (Laughter.) 



No one responded, and Pres. Miller said, " We now stand 

 adjourned." 



